Irelia Gets Pranked
by BlueNavy
Summary: Irelia has been getting prank calls every day for almost a year. Who is this mysterious prank caller, and what will Irelia do once she finds them? CollegeModernAU. One-shot.
1. Chapter 1

"So, can you do it?" Irelia is biting nervously on her cuticles, her voice sounding one part fretful, one part annoyed.

Every day for the past nine months, she has been getting prank calls day in and day out at the most inopportune moments. The first few times it happened, she'd chalked them up as unfortunate incidents of the "wrong number" variety, but ten weeks in, when she was still getting the same periodic calls that said nothing beyond heavy breathing and craggy gasping, it started feeling like it was definitely personal.

Some nights, 4am, she would get a phone call right before a major test or sports meet; weekends, 8am, she would get a phone call waking her up unceremoniously even though it's a time she normally sleeps till noon; some noons, 2pm, she would get a phone call halfway through lecture, her boisterous ringtone a humiliating disruption to the entire class whenever she forgot to set it on silent.

No. Enough is enough.

This is a clear and deliberate sabotage on her life, and whoever this incessant prank-calling bastard is, they are going to pay dearly when she hunts their sorry ass down and pounds it six feet under.

"So, can it be done?" Irelia repeats the question, brows furrowing as she leans in closer to Heimerdinger, this computer science exchange nerd she's managed to drag in.

Currently, they are both cramped in her tiny dormitory suite on-campus, with Heimerdinger performing some hard-core computer mojo on her laptop. She has no idea what the little guy is doing, but it looks totally professional with the mess of ones and zeroes rolling off her laptop screen. It looks like some scene ripped-off from the Matrix, and if it's good enough for Matrix, it's good enough for Irelia.

"Patience is a virtue." Heimerdinger sighs. "It may take awhile to triangulate someone's location, but the dude's a total amateur, he doesn't know how to cover his tracks..." Heimerdinger uses his index finger to push his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose as his fingers dextrously work the keys on the computer.

"Almost there... any second now." He says.

Irelia finds herself holding her breath. Perhaps she should start getting her hockey stick ready if she's going to do this right.

"There-!" A sharp beeping emits from the computer as Heimerdinger pumps his fist victoriously into the air.

"-Nailed you, you bastard!" Irelia promptly hi-fived the nerd before popping her knuckles one by one.

"What's the address?" She asks.

Squinting, Heimerdinger leans in close as he struggles to make out the minute typings and numerical symbols on the laptop screen.

"It seems the address reads.. Ionia.. Street 45, II21GG, D42, University... U-University Road…" Heimerdinger's voice trails off at the same time Irelia audibly exhales a loud wheeze. The address is a familiar one, way too familiar, Irelia should know, it's the address of the dormitory building they are currently residing in right now.

"Holy shit." Irelia's voice quivers as she speaks. "It's coming from inside the house."


	2. Chapter 2

'The day of reckoning has finally dawned, and there is a god.'

Irelia thinks darkly to herself as she looms in front of the unassuming door of room D42, hockey stick in hand, pissed as all hell, and more than ready to batter the door down and cold-clock whatever hellspawn dwells within.

"Inhabitant of D42." Irelia thunders as her fist pounds out a brusque greeting that leaves the door rattling in its frame.

No reply.

"Inhabitant of D42. Get your ass out here." Irelia grits out as she replaces fist with hockey stick, sending little chips of wood splintering everywhere.

"D42." She growls; a jarring, grating sound.

Next door, somebody - this vanilla hippie dude with long blonde hair - peeks out from his room before taking one quick look at Irelia (hair frazzled, eyes bloodshot) and promptly popping right back in, bolting the locks.

"That's right, be afraid." Irelia mutters.

D42 can play dead all they want, but she knows there's someone in there. She can smell them. Right now, she's a strong, healthy female at the pinnacle of the food chain and whoever has been preying on her for the past nine months is going to find out exactly what it feels like to be smoked out and quashed under her strong, healthy boot heel.

Mentally bracing herself, she inhales deeply, then exhales: "DeeeFortyTwoooo!"

It's a loud, drawn out screech, reminiscent of sharp nails scraping down chalk-boards. The ground beneath quakes and somewhere, somewhere, harp strings break and baby seals lie spasming on ice.

The door to D42 creaks open.

"What is the meaning of this?" A slightly accented voice accompanies the flash of garish platinum blonde hair as a bookish-looking girl peeks out from the gap, eyes narrowed in irritation.

Irelia stares at her.

She's seen this girl before, on Wednesdays when it's Asian society game night.

"Syndra?" They've never really conversed but Irelia kinda knows her name. "Syndra Chow?"

"Lito." The girl acknowledges, a flicker of apprehension crossing her eyes before disappearing just as quickly.

"Why are you here?" There is caution in her voice, but it betrays nothing.

"I know what you did." Irelia hefts her hockey stick over her right shoulder.

"What are you talking about?" Syndra's face furrows in all the right places and her perplexity comes off as almost genuine.

Almost.

Grimly, Irelia pulls her iPhone out from the back pocket of her denim black jeans, only pausing to look pointedly at Syndra before tapping on the screen in rapid succession.

"Ring, ring." She's making a call on speaker.

"Ring, ring, ring." Somewhere, in the confined spaces of Syndra's room, a jovial buzz starts up.

"Ring, ring."

"Ring, ring, ring." The buzzing continues.

"You gonna answer that?" Irelia deadpans. "Or do you want me to answer it for you." Flexing her forearm, she twirls the hockey stick deftly between her fingers; a thinly veiled threat.

In light of the insurmountable evidence, Irelia watches as Syndra's face turns two shades paler and her falsified front cracks. Beads of sweat forms on her forehead and her mouth opens and closes in a crude mimic of a goliath grouper.

Honestly. What does one say to the person they've been unremittingly harassing for the better part of a year whilst wrapped snugly under the blanket of anonymity? What does one say?

Syndra can find no words and the silence condemns her.

"Question." Irelia's voice, harsh like whip-crack. "Why do it? I'm just super confused. I hardly even know you. Actually, I don't even know you, we've never talked. So like, what the fuck?"

Syndra licks her lips, her throat suddenly feeling parched and dry.

"Well?"

"It's...I.. it.." Syndra doesn't quite manage.

"Speak up. I can't hear you."

It's hard to believe that this is the same girl who was making those obscene prank calls with the laborious breathing noises (some were really quite lewd) and it only serves to highlight the unsightly things people are capable of when they assume they can't get caught.

"I-It..it was something you did." Syndra croaks.

"What? What did I do? Tell me. What did I do that so justifies your nine months of hate campaign against me, hm? Must have been pretty busy for you, the way you call me every single day."

There's an inappreciable tick of her left eye as Syndra's jaw clenches and her face hardens. Wordlessly, she retreats back into her room and slams the door.

"Hey—I'm still talking to you! Hey!"

As Irelia raises a hand to knock, the door opens once more and Syndra emerges, this time with her Galaxy Edge in tow, and as she swipes the screen to unlock, Irelia catches sight of her notifs at the top:

"Missed call, Pugface."

She feels almost insulted. Nine months, and her number one harasser can't even give her a badass name with some proper kick - and oh, look, Syndra's surfing Youtube now.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Lips pursed, Syndra ignores Irelia as she continues scrolling through a long list of YouTube thumbnails before finally tapping on one and holding the phone up. A video starts playing, it's an MV of some sort, some hyper-energetic Korean song with people dressed in outrageously gaudy outfits dancing flawlessly in sync.

Irelia grabs the phone and squints.

"That's Big Bang. I don't get it. What does this have to do with anything?"

"Scroll down to the comments."

Irelia scrolls.

And she sees it, right there at the top of the comments section with 1135 upvotes:

 _ **IreliaLito94** , 12 months ago_  
 _bigbang can go home and SUCK SHIT this season_  
 _because EXO's gonna sweep the floor Mnet hellllllaa_  
 _ALL EXO-Ls, LIKE IF U AGREE!_  
 _let's show them v.i.p fuckers who is boss ;)_

"When I first saw this there were only 400 upvotes by the way." Syndra sniffs, and Irelia would have rolled her eyes if she wasn't so fucking pissed.

"Wait. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that all the harassment over the past nine months was over this?"

"Well, not if you put it like that... I mean, at first I was pretty angry when I recognised your username. You should know better, Lito. You can't just go riling people up, slamming their idols on their YouTube page and not expect a backlash, it makes you fair game under standard Kpop rules so I thought I'd mess with you a little. But honestly, the prank-calling sort of.. well, it became a habit after a while. You know how when you do something over an extended period of time and it becomes hard to stop-?"

Syndra isn't doing herself any favours right now. With every word that tumbles heedlessly out of her mouth, the veins in Irelia's neck only bulge and throb even more precariously.

"-Sometimes when I get bored, I find myself reaching for the phone for no reason," Syndra is saying, "and before I know it, I'm there dialling your number just for the fun of it. It's really nothing personal, so.. let's move on from this and let bygones be bygones?"

Is this girl real? She can't be real. That's the only explanation. She can't be real because the logical part of Irelia refuses to believe that her harassment had stemmed from something as insignificant as "Big Bang" and "for the fun of it."

"for the fun of it."  
"for the fun of it."  
"for the fun of it."

The words echo in Irelia's head; it echoes, it wails, it rings. It doesn't stop.

Glancing behind Syndra's figure through the half-opened door, it's only now that Irelia notices the walls of Syndra's room smothered head to toe in posters of Big Bang and Big Bang album art; Syndra's bookshelves are stacked high with volumes after volumes of Big Bang biographies, picture books and fan comics; Syndra's desk is littered with numerous items of Big Bang mementos and paraphernalia, ranging in value from moderately pricey to intrinsically worthless, and seeing all these tokens, all these physical manifestations of Syndra's mindless, vacuous, rabid, pop culture worship, something in Irelia snaps.

She snaps.

With a strangled animalistic howl, she shoves past Syndra and launches herself right into the room. Casting her hockey stick to the floor (girl ain't gonna need that now), she jumps onto Syndra's bed, almost stumbling in blind rage as her hands reach out for the nearest poster - grabbing it, pulling it, and shredding it apart with such monstrous ferocity that the cheap plaster walls of the room shakes and threatens to cave. Then, not quite satisfied with the one kill, Irelia lunges at the next poster, tearing it clear off the walls, crushing it into a tight ball and tossing it bluntly to the ground before moving on to the next target. And just like that, just like a tornado, she whirls through the room, a force of sheer destruction: slamming things against the wall, throwing things, breaking things, twisting things, all while Syndra stands there gaping, too shocked to even move.

And as Irelia rips another handful of pages out of a BigBang picture book, she's thinking: 'More, I need more.'

Chest heaving violently, her eyes scan the room like a hawk, eventually catching sight of the last remaining poster. It's hanging from a prominent spot in the room, right above Syndra's work desk, with candles and potpourri placed below it in, what could best be described as, a bizarre (and crass) imitation of a ritualistic shrine.

Bingo.

"No." There's sharp gasping as Syndra follows Irelia's gaze. "N-no, not Seung-hyun. Not my signed, limited edition, Seung-hyun." Her voice is barely a whisper as she watches Irelia approach the poster with purposeful strides.

There's only thirty of those in the world, Syndra just happens to have one.

"No?" Irelia's face is stormy as her fingers slowly, deliberately, tickle the fringe of the poster, cruelly teasing Syndra as she totes her through the fine line between hope and desolation.

"Please." Syndra's throat is dry.

"Please, I'll do anything-." She's clasping her hands together now; gaze feral, desperate - pleading. Irelia likes pleading.

"-Anything to atone."

Irelia regards her for a moment. Jade eyes steely as she takes in the grovelling form in front of her.

"Anything?" She asks, a wry smile playing at the corner of her lips as she looks at Syndra, who is now nodding her head in rapid, exaggerated motions, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Irelia appears to mull it over, cocking her head to the side, before staring straight into Syndra's eyes and enunciating each word with crystal clarity: "This is, atonement."

There's a keen, crackling rip as Irelia yanks the poster down in one fluid strike, effectively rending it in two, and as both halves of her idol's face flutters to the ground and stares back at Syndra with some poetic finality, the girl breaks down (she breaks down) and collapses to the floor, her body curling into herself, adopting a foetal position while heavy sobs wreck her torso.

"Nooo. No, no, no, no." Her wails are soft and faintly audible as she buries her head into the carpet and her fingers fumble feebly for the torn pieces now strewn haplessly on the floor.

The sight would actually be pretty heartwrenching if the premise wasn't so damn ridiculous. Still, Irelia feels a short stab of regret pulse through her heart, but she shakes it off and steels herself, towering strong over Syndra's prone form.

"Take this as a lesson learnt, Chow. Next time I get another prank call, the hole I rip will be much more painful than this."


End file.
